The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny cel­e­brat­ed its 120th Anniver­sary with the chris­ten­ing of their newest tug­boat, the Tug MICHIGAN.

The Tow­ing Com­pa­ny was incor­po­rat­ed on July 7, 1899. The Company’s found­ing share­hold­ers com­prised a ver­i­ta­ble “Who’s Who” of the nation’s great indus­tri­al­ists of the day. Through­out its 120-year his­to­ry, the Com­pa­ny has con­tin­u­ous­ly evolved to meet the chang­ing demands of the agri­cul­tur­al, steel, and con­struc­tion indus­tries, as well as the needs of the ships and tug/barge units which serve those industries.

With the largest U.S.-flag tug­boat fleet on the Great Lakes, the Tow­ing Com­pa­ny pro­vides har­bor assist and tow­ing ser­vices to both domes­tic and for­eign-flag ves­sels in more than 40 U.S. Great Lakes ports.

“Through decades of changes, expe­ri­enc­ing both the highs and lows, the Com­pa­ny has endured, and remained a crit­i­cal link in the Great Lakes trans­porta­tion sys­tem, and we have always tried to be an out­stand­ing cor­po­rate cit­i­zen. We are proud to be cel­e­brat­ing 120 years, and we look for­ward to many more!” says Joe Star­ck, President.

On Mon­day evening, July 22nd, the Tow­ing Company’s employ­ees, cus­tomers, ven­dors, com­mu­ni­ty, friends, and fam­i­ly joined togeth­er at Merwin’s Wharf on the Cuya­hoga Riv­er in Cleveland’s Flats to cel­e­brate the Company’s 120-year his­to­ry and their opti­mism for the future of the industry.

The Tug MICHIGAN was chris­tened by ves­sel spon­sor, Car­olyn Watkins, Chief, Office of Envi­ron­men­tal Edu­ca­tion and Admin­is­tra­tor, Diesel Emis­sion Reduc­tion Pro­grams for the Ohio Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency. She was instru­men­tal in help­ing the Com­pa­ny secure fund­ing assis­tance through the EPA’s Diesel Emis­sions Reduc­tion Grant (DERG) pro­gram for the fleet’s new con­struc­tion program.

The new­ly con­struct­ed Tug MICHIGAN is the third in a series of five, 64-foot Damen 1907 ICE design har­bor tugs that Great Lakes Ship­yard is build­ing for The Great Lakes Tow­ing Company’s oper­a­tion. The tug is 64’x24’x11’, pow­ered by two 1,000-hp MTU 8V4000 Tier III diesel engines, and gen­er­ates over 30-tons of bol­lard pull. Its propul­sion sys­tem includes the Logan Flex­aDrive Hybrid pow­er sys­tem, allow­ing the tug to oper­ate on elec­tric pow­er while at idle, under­way at low speeds, or when under low loads, with­out the need to uti­lize the main engines, reduc­ing emis­sions and the cost of engine main­te­nance. The tug’s com­pact size and high maneu­ver­abil­i­ty make it ide­al for the nar­row water­ways and low bridges that char­ac­ter­ize har­bor tow­ing on the Great Lakes.

“The new tugs demon­strate our com­mit­ment to the ship­ping indus­try on the Great Lakes and to our cus­tomers. It is our mis­sion to pro­vide the high­est lev­el of ser­vice to the ves­sels and com­pa­nies we work for. The new tugs will allow us to con­tin­ue to do just that…but even bet­ter: clean­er, safer, and even more depend­able,” con­tin­ues Starck.

The Tugs CLEVELAND and OHIO were the first new tugs built in the series as part of the Company’s fleet renew­al pro­gram. The fourth tug, PENNSYLVANIA, will be com­plet­ed late this year. The fifth tug, not yet named, is slat­ed for a Spring 2020 com­ple­tion. Addi­tion­al fol­low-on tugs of the same design are avail­able for pur­chase by third par­ty buyers.